Strandbad Wannsee is an artificial beach situated south west of Berlin, on the edges of the big Wannsee Lake. Open to the public since 1907, it has always been a very popular place for walking and recreation, as you can see in Im Wannseebad (1910). At the end of the 1920’s, architects Richard Ermisch (1885-1960) and Martin Wagner (1885-1957) designed the main building, today a historically listed building.  After the war, Wannsee beach represented one of the rare leisure areas of West Berlin, enclosed in the Federal Republic of Germany.

This film without dialogue re-uses images filmed by Hansjürgen (Jason) Pohland (born in 1934) for his documentary on the employees of Strandbad Wannsee, Von der Sonne leben (Living on the Sun). Hans Totter (aka Pohland himself who often resorted to this pseudonym), the film director, modified the montage:  the images thus took on a new significance.  The “voice over” disappeared and instead music accompanied the action, giving the film its tonality that is both critical and amusing.

Strandbad Wannsee is no longer the idyllic, almost wild beach shown in Im Wannseebad. The crowd is the only thing in common between both films, separated by fifty years.  Although absent from Pohland’s images, the masses are cleverly suggested by the quantity of refuse dirtying the beach!

Hansjürgen Pohland made several short and feature length films.  But it was as a producer that his cinematographic career began.  He founded the Modern Art Filmproduktion in 1955, at the age of 21.  In 1962, just like Haro Senft (born in 1928) and Alexander Kluge (born in 1932), he signed the Oberhausen manifesto, which asked for institutional financial assistance encouraging the production of a new German film industry.